[1] From 1793, under letters patent of King George III, the Andrews Professor held the title Royal Astronomer of Ireland.
Dunsink Observatory was founded in 1785 following a bequest by Francis Andrews, who died in 1774 while Provost of Trinity College.
Andrews' bequest also funded the eponymous professorship,[2] which was regulated by a new college statute requiring the professor to "make regular observations of the heavenly bodies ... and of the sun, moon and planets".
The civil disturbance and political upheaval of the period precluded filling the vacancy quickly.
The title Royal Astronomer was never revived;[1] Dunsink and its directorship passed in 1947 from Trinity College to the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies; the Andrews Professorship was revived in 1984 as an honorary title in Trinity's School of Mathematics.